Galaxy Season

Hi all, as spring is here, I set up for an hour's observing last night under very clear and calm spring skies. Now that the moon is out of the way I decided to take a trip down memory lane and have a look at some galaxies in Leo and in the Virgo super cluster, I haven't observed this area of the night sky in many years. I observed them with my APM120ED Binoculars. I primarily used my apm 24mm eyepieces to give me a lovely widefield view at x28, I used this to find these galaxies with a 2.3 degree field of view.

I started with M95, M96 and M105 in Leo. These were easily found, to my delight they were more than just 'faint fuzzies'.

M95 at magnitude 9.7 showed a moderately condensed central core and a slight hint of a rounded structure around it's centre, I could not detect the central bar which is a feature of this galaxy.

M96 was much brighter at magnitude 9.1, bright and circular with a hint of spiral structure

I then moved to M105 at magnitude 9.2, a bright, but really featureless galaxy as it is an elliptical galaxy. One thing that struck me how both Messier and Mechain did not include the close-by galaxy NGC3384 just 12' east of M105. It is nearly as bright at magnitude 9.9.and not so easily missed due to it's closeness to M105. This also appeared very fuzzy to me also.

I then meandered throughout the Virgo supercluster of galaxies. I looked at many Messier galaxies here and didn't bother with details as I got lost along the way

I looked at M59, M60, M61, M58, M87, M86, M84. Also along with these were just too many NGC galaxies of moderate brightness scattered all over these starfields, it was lovely just to see them all again. It was a wonder I wont forget for a long time as you realise you are looking back over the depths of time.

I finished with globular clusters M3 and M13, two very fine globular objects indeed. Finally I looked at M51 and it's companion NGC5195 using my apm 12.5mm eyepieces to give x53. It was the best eyepiece view I've ever experienced of these two galaxies, being so high up in the sky. M51 at magnitude 7.9 appeared spiral in nature, and large too, it was like looking down on our own milkyway from afar. It's close companion NGC5195 was fainter at magnitude 9.5 very similar to any of the bright messier galaxies.

I would encourage any one to have a look at this area of the spring sky while our moon is currently out of the evening sky, and summer has yet to come upon us.

Keith..

Thank you for this super report, Keith.
M87 was in my top 10 favourite observations in 2019.
I had never observed it before.
I was at the Sugarloaf car park at the time.
Of course it is the one with the super massive black hole.
It's a huge elliptical galaxy perhaps bigger than our own Milky Way.

Clear skies,

Aubrey.

Yes Aubrey, it's surreal to know just what we are looking at. M87 is huge, being at the centre of that super cluster of galaxies that must contain thousands of galaxies !

www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/messier-87

I wish I could have seen that jet  

I am going to try again and increase magnification tonight all being with a clear sky.

Keith..

Hi Keith,

Very many thank for sharing your observations with us. I enjoyed reading about your observations. Your binoculars sound like a great instrument to view the sky with. 

Good point about NGC3384, I wonder what caused the omission.

And what a nice way to finish up the night with two globular clusters. The best view I've had of M13 was at the Sugar Loaf through Sean's big Dob...I'll never forget it...beautiful DSO.

Clear skies,

Darren.